--- type: summary title: Relationalized Finance (Bollier and Hulst, 2025) description: An essay proposing noncapitalist, commons-based finance for bioregions, built around a regrantor fund that shields commons from the extractive demands of capital. status: draft confidence: medium validation: machine timestamp: 2026-10-09 licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 tags: [relationalized-finance, commons, bioregioning, noncapitalist-finance, regrantor-fund, transvestment, bff] sources: [] --- # Relationalized Finance (Bollier and Hulst, 2025) *An essay by David Bollier and Natasha Hulst of the Schumacher Center for a New Economics, version 1.0, dated 8 December 2025 (raw/Relationalized_Finance_essay_version_1.0_December_8_2025.pdf, pp. 1, 28). It runs to 28 pages in five sections. Read for this page: the whole essay. The essay is by outside authors, and this page is a summary in our own words, not a copy.* ## What it argues The authors propose a noncapitalist finance for bioregions, which they call relationalized finance (raw/Relationalized_Finance_essay_version_1.0_December_8_2025.pdf, p. 1). They argue that green finance, ESG screens, carbon offsets and similar strategies have left the core logic of finance intact. Growth, returns and investor control remain in place (raw/Relationalized_Finance_essay_version_1.0_December_8_2025.pdf, pp. 1-2). They cite a 2025 nature-finance report: over $7 trillion a year finances harm, while under $200 billion goes to protection or restoration (raw/Relationalized_Finance_essay_version_1.0_December_8_2025.pdf, p. 2). Relationalized finance exists to deepen social, economic and political relationships in a particular bioregion. It does not seek private financial gain (raw/Relationalized_Finance_essay_version_1.0_December_8_2025.pdf, p. 3). The authors describe it as "nonextractive, peer governed, place-specific, humane" (raw/Relationalized_Finance_essay_version_1.0_December_8_2025.pdf, p. 3). They judge state reform of finance a nonstarter for now, with some openings at municipal level (raw/Relationalized_Finance_essay_version_1.0_December_8_2025.pdf, p. 3). The central proposal is a regrantor fund, one possible form of bioregional finance facility. It sits as a buffer between funders and commons, so money arrives without transactional demands on the people who receive it (raw/Relationalized_Finance_essay_version_1.0_December_8_2025.pdf, pp. 22-23). The authors name the move of money from capitalist circuits into commons-stewarded value transvestment (raw/Relationalized_Finance_essay_version_1.0_December_8_2025.pdf, pp. 3, 26). ## Key points - **The problem is ontological.** In the authors' view, price cannot express the value of living systems, because that value lives in their relationships (raw/Relationalized_Finance_essay_version_1.0_December_8_2025.pdf, pp. 10-12). Making nature measurable so that markets can price it is, they argue, a category mistake (raw/Relationalized_Finance_essay_version_1.0_December_8_2025.pdf, p. 12). - **Commons as the vehicle.** Commoning gives people a proven way to govern shared wealth, limit extraction and meet needs fairly (raw/Relationalized_Finance_essay_version_1.0_December_8_2025.pdf, pp. 7-8). The authors admit that commons can suffer from hierarchy, cliques and poor coordination (raw/Relationalized_Finance_essay_version_1.0_December_8_2025.pdf, p. 9). - **Six premises for a bioregional economy.** They include inalienable shared wealth, federated structures, peer governance before trade, and commons/public partnerships with the state (raw/Relationalized_Finance_essay_version_1.0_December_8_2025.pdf, p. 7). - **Socio-ecological markets.** Section 4 lists eighteen strategies, from land trusts and bioregional currencies to rotating savings groups, public procurement and community wealth building (raw/Relationalized_Finance_essay_version_1.0_December_8_2025.pdf, pp. 16-21). Examples include BerkShares, Agrarian Trust and Terre de Liens (raw/Relationalized_Finance_essay_version_1.0_December_8_2025.pdf, pp. 17-18). - **How the regrantor fund works.** Money would pool from commoners, allies, crowdfunding, supportive businesses, philanthropy and local government. Trustees from the commons and bioregional community would make the grants (raw/Relationalized_Finance_essay_version_1.0_December_8_2025.pdf, p. 23). The model is the foundations behind open source software such as Debian and Apache (raw/Relationalized_Finance_essay_version_1.0_December_8_2025.pdf, p. 23). - **Money stays at arm's length.** The fund follows a commoning pattern: "keep commoning and commerce distinct" (raw/Relationalized_Finance_essay_version_1.0_December_8_2025.pdf, p. 23). A strong culture of commoning has to come first. - **Peer judgement over single metrics.** The authors argue that a single bottom line is the wrong test for this kind of finance (raw/Relationalized_Finance_essay_version_1.0_December_8_2025.pdf, p. 27). They point to peer certification, such as Barcelona's Community Balance and the Participatory Guarantee Systems used by agroecological farmers (raw/Relationalized_Finance_essay_version_1.0_December_8_2025.pdf, p. 27). - **Coexistence with mainstream finance.** The authors say relationalized finance will not displace capitalist finance, and expect the two to coexist. Their bet is that its logic spreads and gains influence over time (raw/Relationalized_Finance_essay_version_1.0_December_8_2025.pdf, p. 25). Amsterdam and a citizen fund in Kingston, New York, are early experiments (raw/Relationalized_Finance_essay_version_1.0_December_8_2025.pdf, pp. 27-28). ## Where it sits in this wiki - [[Bioregional Financing Facilities (book, 2024)]]: the essay credits the BFF idea to Power and Seefeld's book (raw/Relationalized_Finance_essay_version_1.0_December_8_2025.pdf, pp. 3, 21). It offers the regrantor fund as one type of BFF (raw/Relationalized_Finance_essay_version_1.0_December_8_2025.pdf, p. 22). - [[SI-SF: System Investing and System Finance (Codex 25)]]: a contrast. Codex 25 builds tools to price value and route it through contracts and securities. This essay warns that pricing living systems distorts them (synthesis). - [[BFF Discovery Arc 1: Allocation Decision Governance]]: regrantor trustees, flow funding and peer certification each answer who decides allocation (synthesis). - [[BFF Discovery Arc 4: Multi-Capital Returns]]: the essay doubts that living value should be measured as returns at all. That challenges multi-capital accounting (synthesis).